A BUSINESS MODEL FOR THE SHIPWRECKS IN THE BAHAMAS

[Oceanscience]

Although there are thousands of shipwrecks in less than 50 feet of water, in the Bahamas, most of these shipwrecks have little of value that could be sold.

These shipwrecks still should be located and identified.

How can the exploration of these shipwrecks be financed?

Could an educational aspect be combined with an entertainment aspect?

Would an archaeological field school be a solution? Courses for divers with a keen interest in shipwrecks?

On the land side, for the non divers, courses in conservation, preservation and curating of the artifacts?

Would people go and spend a vacation in the Bahamas, to participate in such events?
In the UK, thousands of divers are interested in taking part of such opportunities in the cold and murky waters of the UK. Would they be interested in doing the same in the crystal clear, warm waters of the Bahamas?

How could an umbrella enterprise that organizes such events be structured financially?

Can we find a business model that is economically feasible for exploring the shipwrecks of the Bahamas?

 

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[trinidad]

Ocean, if you get the answer, let us know, please. I´m over that (in other place in another country) and numbers dont fix.

 

[Oceanscience]

Ocean, if you get the answer, let us know, please. I´m over that (in other place in another country) and numbers dont fix.

Great, somebody with experience in the subject.

Would you be so kind as to share your knowledge?

What worked and what did not?

 

[ScubaFinder]

I can tell you from experience that archaeological field schools do a great service to the archaeological community, and the treasure hunters as well. The archaeology students get hands on experience underwater on a real wreck, as well as conservation experience on the artifacts that they found...lots of smiling faces and camaraderie when a field school is going on. Most importantly for me personally, is that the young minds of the up and coming archaeologists get to meet some of the fine folks on the other side. They see that we share the same interest in history and preserving it, they see how much time, work, security, and money it takes to clean and protect a pile of treasure. The treasure hunters get a swarm of motivated individuals to do all of the mundane measuring and recording that many of our types don't enjoy, and we get to smile and hand over our data with confidence knowing it was recorded correctly and completely.

If our community did more of these, there would soon be peace between the two communities because we would finally know and understand each other...there are infinitely more similarities than there are differences.

For the record, I only came in after the field school was over. I base my comments on several students who came back on their own accord to do more work, verify something they had a theory on, or just to say hello to their friends, the treasure hunters. We got so many emails thanking the guys, pictures, cards, phone calls, etc. The after-effects were actually quite enlightening for me, and I regret to this day that I missed that experience, and by only a few weeks. So my vote on field schools is a resounding yes!

We also had a marine biology student get some free hands on experience by doing our bathymetric survey report and our environmental impact study. She got her project hours towards her doctorate as well as a lot of experience, and we paid her for her time. We got professional reports and studies for a fraction of the cost we would normally pay. What do I always say about working TOGETHER?

Jason

 

[Alexandre]

Would an archaeological field school be a solution? Courses for divers with a keen interest in shipwrecks?

On the land side, for the non divers, courses in conservation, preservation and curating of the artifacts?

Would people go and spend a vacation in the Bahamas, to participate in such events?

You have that experience already in place in the D. Republic. My guess is that the overall fee is very expendive for a guy coming in all the way from Europe.


http://www.admat.org.uk/tw1.htm

 

[Oceanscience]

I can tell you from experience that archaeological field schools do a great service to the archaeological community, and the treasure hunters as well. The archaeology students get hands on experience underwater on a real wreck, as well as conservation experience on the artifacts that they found...lots of smiling faces and camaraderie when a field school is going on. Most importantly for me personally, is that the young minds of the up and coming archaeologists get to meet some of the fine folks on the other side. They see that we share the same interest in history and preserving it, they see how much time, work, security, and money it takes to clean and protect a pile of treasure.

If our community did more of these, there would soon be peace between the two communities because we would finally know and understand each other...there are infinitely more similarities than there are differences.

Jason

What you say, is very much true. However, I was also thinking of amateur archaeologists and amateur historians. There are many more people interested in history and archaeology, just for the fun of it, than there are professionals.
Just look at the success of the "History Channel".

Diving is fun.

Diving in warm, crystal clear water that is teeming of fish, is even more fun. Just look how the diving industry has been growing in the last 40 years.

But after a while, just diving is not enough anymore. People want some activity. Interaction. See something different.
To swim over a ballast pile is no great excitement. But if you have been told how this ship wrecked about the people on board about the wreckers who came the save what could be salvaged. In short, the whole story that is known about the wreck site, then a dive over the site becomes much more interesting.

Now we can also tell about the missing links in the story of this shipwreck. The part that we do not know yet and how we want to go about finding the information that is still missing.

Is some information hidden under that ballast pile? What could we find along the scatter trail? How long can we follow the scatter trail across the reef? Is there a part of the shipwreck under that sand?

What kind of creatures have made this shipwreck their home? I have heard more than one diver tell a story how he found some gold or silver coins in a hole when he extracted the lobster living in it.

Or should I tell you the story about that octopus that was a clay pipe collector? How come that the 3 clay pipes in his home covered a time span of 150 years?

Or about the big barracuda who claimed the shipwreck site of the Elija Swift his territory. Hi did not like us intruding. Swimming up and down and changing color, his dark stripes getting wider until he was nearly dark all over and then narrower again all silver in the sunlight.

When this had no effect on us, he started making lightening fast fake attacks, stopping only a few feet away. We were quite oblivious to all these antics of the barracuda, because we were digging under some ballast stones and a few silver coins were starting to appear.

When the Indian-head gold coin turned up, we congregated and conversed with gestures, as divers do when they are excited. the barracuda wanted to be part of the conversation and made a flash attack on Bob. Bob hit him with the marlin spike and gouged an eye out.

Would you believe that the barracuda made another flash attack on me, stopping only about 8 inches from my face and showing his big mouth full of large extremely sharp teeth?
A bit scary I would say, but after many such incidences, we started to understand the barracuda's behavior. Why he does what he does.

And we learned to live in peaceful coexistence with the creatures who made the wreck site their home.

Well, the octopus still made a good meal, just too bad I was slow in thinking and did not understand that he offered me a peace pipe, when I grabbed him.

Below, the picture of the 3 clay pipes that the octopus had hoarded in his lair.

I had a glorious time diving on shipwrecks. The most fascinating experiences I can remember.

I keep thinking others would enjoy similar experiences. Nowadays one could film these happenings and post them on You-tube. Wouldn't that be great advertising?

 

[Oceanscience]

Would an archaeological field school be a solution? Courses for divers with a keen interest in shipwrecks?

On the land side, for the non divers, courses in conservation, preservation and curating of the artifacts?

Would people go and spend a vacation in the Bahamas, to participate in such events?

You have that experience already in place in the D. Republic. My guess is that the overall fee is very expendive for a guy coming in all the way from Europe.


http://www.admat.org.uk/tw1.htm

Thanks Alexandre, this seems to be a great project. Why should it not be copied and multiplied on the thousands of Bahamas shipwrecks?

 

[Alexandre]

Thanks Alexandre, this seems to be a great project. Why should it not be copied and multiplied on the thousands of Bahamas shipwrecks?

Why not, indeed? I think it's a great project - as far as I know, there's no artefact selling involved.

 

[ScubaFinder]

Nope, Spooner and his group do not sell artifacts, they do top notch conservation work also. They do not find wrecks though, both the tile wreck listed above and the pipe wreck discussed earlier were found by North Caribbean Research, a treasure hunting firm who allowed Spooner and his archaeology students to conduct excavations inside his legally leased territory. My point, and not to start an argument, its that this school could never have taken place without us (NCR) showing the wrecks to Dominican Minister of Culture and offering them up for further study. No doubt there will be a lot of treasure hunting boats surveying and finding wrecks that have no instrinsic value, which means there will be a never ending supply of field school locations.

Here is a pic of me holding up some of the pieces from the tile wreck.

 

[Alexandre]

They do not find wrecks though, both the tile wreck listed above and the pipe wreck discussed earlier were found by North Caribbean Research, a treasure hunting firm who allowed Spooner and his archaeology students to conduct excavations inside his legally leased territory. My point, and not to start an argument, its that this school could never have taken place without us (NCR) showing the wrecks to Dominican Minister of Culture and offering them up for further study. No doubt there will be a lot of treasure hunting boats surveying and finding wrecks that have no instrinsic value, which means there will be a never ending supply of field school locations.

Not wanting to start an argument either, but anyone that does good research and works in suitable environments and has the proper tools can find a wreck - so, your argument that you need a TH company in order to supply archaeologists with wrecks with no "intrinsic value" for them to excavate is a moot point.

 

[ScubaFinder]

This is childish Alexandre...can I not post anymore without you following it up with your ridiculous nonsense?

My point was that THIS PARTICULAR field school would in FACT not have taken place without NCR's help.

You are a broken record with no original thought in your head. This is the last response you will incite out of me.

 

[Alexandre]

This is childish Alexandre...can I not post anymore without you following it up with your ridiculous nonsense?

My point was that THIS PARTICULAR field school would in FACT not have taken place without NCR's help.

You are a broken record with no original thought in your head. This is the last response you will incite out of me.

Jason, I know you said that but then you expanded saying: "no doubt there will be a lot of treasure hunting boats surveying and finding wrecks that have no instrinsic value, which means there will be a never ending supply of field school locations", a generalization with which I disagreed and said so.

So, if you really think that making a conversation over rational arguments is childish and sounds like a broken record, then fret no more - its about time I stop "losing" time with this board.

So, you win.

 

[Oceanscience]

I would like to stay away from the subject of selling/not selling artifacts for the time being. We are talking about Bahama shipwrecks. The Bahamian people own the shipwrecks and it is their decision what they want to do with the shipwreck artifacts.

I want to concentrate on finding a way to make it possible for people from all over the world to be able to enjoy this unique resource. A way that is a win-win solution to the visitors and the Bahamians.

I find certain things enjoyable. Not everybody shares the same interests. However, if there are enough people who find joy in doing what I did, there might be a way to make it possible for all.

I could use hypothetical shipwrecks and hypothetical artifacts, but people might say this is not real, this will never happen and this never happened. This is why I show some pictures. Proof that the story is true.
So I go back to my pipe hoarding octopus.

The first question, of course, is how come the clay pipes were of such different date. This seems to indicate that there are shipwrecks of different date nearby.

What would be the range of action of an octopus?
How far would he venture from his lair in search of food?
Why would he collect clay pipes?
Would he carry hes pipes with him when he moves to a different neighborhood?

These are not exactly questions that an archaeologist might ask, octopi are not exactly archaeological finds, but some of the answers might help the archaeologist deduce information to his interest.

It would seem that there are at least 2 shipwrecks or maybe 3, of different date in the vicinity. Interesting?
What more can the clay pipes tell us?

One of the pipes has a Freemason sign on it. Can this help us with a guess for the ship's provenance? I know from experience that if one finds many religious medallions, crosses, rosaries, on a wreck, it is a ship from a mostly Catholic country.

What about Freemasons?

The date of the Freemason pipe could be from the later half of the 19th century. Do we have information about a shipwreck of that time in this area?

Then there is the smaller clay pipe. This dates more like the first half of the 18th century. Why is it smaller? Because at that time the tobacco was more expensive.

Do we have information about a shipwreck of that time in this region?

A lot of information from a quick grab for an octopus, destined for the evening meal.

Information is what we look for. With so many shipwreck all over the place, we want to collect every little bit of information that can help us sort out what is what.

A few of the Bahamas shipwrecks are of great value.
Which ones?
How do we identify them when they are intermingled with other shipwrecks.

We need experience for that.

We need experienced people who can teach us the know-how, unless we want to spend many years re-inventing the wheel.

 

[SEAHUNTER]

This is childish Alexandre...can I not post anymore without you following it up with your ridiculous nonsense?

My point was that THIS PARTICULAR field school would in FACT not have taken place without NCR's help.

You are a broken record with no original thought in your head. This is the last response you will incite out of me.

Jason, I know you said that but then you expanded saying: "no doubt there will be a lot of treasure hunting boats surveying and finding wrecks that have no instrinsic value, which means there will be a never ending supply of field school locations", a generalization with which I disagreed and said so.

So, if you really think that making a conversation over rational arguments is childish and sounds like a broken record, then fret no more - its about time I stop "losing" time with this board.

So, you win.

That is the best news I have heard since you joined Tnet.

 

[stevemc]

I agree!

 

[Bobadilla]

Jason is completely right, because I was working with NCR at the same time as Jas. I had been coming and diving in Montecristi even years before Jason arrived and I was also indirectly involved in the never ending discussion between Simon Spooner and NCR. The truth is that the President of North Caribbean Research, Rick Berry, gave him permission to use Tile Wreck from his lease area.

Other IMPORTANT point is that a model that Mr. Spooner wants to use in the Dominican Republic would be probably OK also in other countries, but I can only tell you that nicely designed web page and offers for field school and foreign students to learn about martine archaeology in field made only on paper is one matter and then the reality could be completely other matter. Nice model for maritime archaelogy field schools does not eliminate eternal paper work with government permissions neither.

Bobadilla

 

[Oceanscience]

How many shipwrecks are there in the Bahamas?
Some estimates go up to 5000 shipwrecks.
I have a listing of maybe 1000 shipwrecks.
Most of the shipwrecks are in shallow water where they have been exposed to the yearly storms, the wreckers and the modern divers and snorkelers.
There are maybe 100 valuable shipwrecks, of which there are 10 that are very valuable. The value can be historical, archaeological and monetary.
The valuable shipwrecks are either in deeper water or deeply buried in the sand.

The Bahamas archipelago is a boaters paradise. Hundreds of islands, thousands of anchorages, mostly very calm water, very mild climate, ample services and short distance from the USA.
Thousands of boats visit the Bahamas every year and bring millions of $ of revenue.

Many of the boaters dive. Most of the boaters snorkel. All of the shallow shipwrecks have been seen by these visitors, although most of them did not recognize what they saw as shipwrecks.

Over time, the visitors get more educated about shipwrecks and easier recognize what they see. Most of these visitors pick up bits and pieces to carry home as souvenirs.
A good example id the remains of the Ship Elija Swift, that wrecked in 1850 on the Great Isaac island.
Above, I mentioned how we played chicken with the great barracuda, while poking in the ballast of the shipwreck and how we found some silver and gold coins over 20 years ago. We had stopped in the shelter of the island to wait for the weather to clear and were just killing time.
Like us thousands of other boaters have stopped at Great Isaac. Some anchored on the wrong side and were surprised by a storm and ended up shipwrecked too. There are the remains of many modern boats littering the bottom all around the island.
Beneath the modern wrecks, there are the remains of several older shipwrecks, among these, the Elija Swift.
Over time, thousands of people have picked over the wreckage and found some souvenirs. Yet, I bet, that there is still silver and gold to be found there. Hey, greedy one, forget about getting rich there. You will probably work weeks before you see the glitter of any gold. It will not even pay for your drinks.
But it is fun to poke around to find musket balls, pewter spoons, ships fittings and remains of the ships cargo.
It is fun to show the bits and pieces to friends after returning home, bragging a bit, being the hero of the bar for a while.
The bragging also serves a good purpose. It is hot, word by mouth advertising that helps bringing more visitors to the Bahamas.
The Elija Swift can be used as a good example of a lowest level value shipwreck. There are many hundreds of these kinds of shipwrecks in the Bahamas. They represent a valuable tourist attraction that brings millions of income each year.

Next we will move a step higher in the value of a shipwreck. There are fewer of these. They merit closer attention.

 

[Oceanscience]

We do not need to go far from Great Isaac for a better shipwreck. There is one in 50 to 60feet, a short distance away. An English war ship.

She was caught in a Hurricane. When the captain saw that they were drifting towards the North Rock, he dropped an anchor. The bottom does not give much hold there. The anchor did nor manage to prevent the ship drifting over the rock. The anchor chain can be found stretched out over the rock. She sank not far away.

Since she is in deeper water, it is unlikely that she has been salvaged a lot. It might be an interesting archaeological target.

Just from memory. I need to look it up in my files.

This brings me to another subject. We need a computerized database. This digging in dusty old files is not for the 21st century.
We need a database that puts all known shipwrecks on the map.
And then we need to add all the information about each shipwreck that is available, from the archives as well as from the people. This includes the fishermen. They see a lot during the many years they are working the banks.

All the shipwrecks need to be ordered into categories according to their value, historical, archaeological and monetary.

Quite a bit of work there, building the centralized database and updating it regularly.

 

[Oceanscience]

The English war ship near North Rock, may or may not be of great archaeological significance. We will only know when we take a closer look at it. If it is not of great interest to a Phd. archaeologist, it still might be a lot of fun and good learning experience for amateur archaeologists.

The Bahamas need many amateur archaeologists and the collaboration of thousands of amateur divers. How else can they cope with the hundreds of archaeological sites?

Past experience has shown that a top notch archaeological excavation on a shipwreck takes many years. This way, excavating the 20 most significant archaeological sites in the Bahamas might take 100 years. Is that an option?

If we go south from Great Isaac, we come to the Eldorado Shoals. Near there, 3 very old anchors were found. The anchors were set in one line and the shafts of all 3 pointed to the east. The anchors had the wooden stocks still attached and one of the stocks was in perfect condition.
Even the anchor ropes were still attached and stretched out towards the east.

There is no doubt that these 3 anchors were from the same ship and that the ship had cast the anchors as fast as possible while being blown on the bank.

I collected a sample of the hemp rope from one of the anchors. It was analysed and carbon dated by the university of Pittsburgh.

The middle date turned out to be the year 1490 +/- 40 years.

We did not find the shipwreck. The ship did not sink while attached to the anchors. It must have been blown further up on the bank after the anchor ropes broke and is buried in the deep sand.

This would be a shipwreck of category #1. Of great historical and archaeological significance. It might even be a shipwreck of great monetary value too. These first Spanish ships of the time of conquest, often returned home with priceless gold artifacts of immense cultural value.

There are other such shipwrecks in the Bahamas. Some lie in deep water. Others lie in the shallows but are completely buried under deep sand.

Should these buried shipwrecks be just left there? They are safe where they are, aren't they?

The Eldorado anchors can teach us a lesson about that. These anchors stayed buried for over 450 years. The still intact anchor ropes prove that.

How did we find them?

The year before, a vicious hurricane swept through the region. The wind and wave direction combined with the strong current of the storm surge, changed the sea bed, removing enough sand to expose the anchors and their wooden stocks. This is not the first or only time this happened. The incrustations on the upper part of the anchors showed repeated exposure. Only the ropes and lower parts of the anchors showed no exposure.

In other words, if we think we can just leave that shiwreck undisturbed and it will be preserved for centuries to come, we are playing Russian Roulette with the Hurricanes.

 

[Dell Winders]

How did you conclude that the wreck you found at Great Issac, was the Elijah Swift? Dell